100 OneShot Challenge
by Amberleaf le Haunt
Summary: So, I am taking Prin Pardus's 100 OneShot Challenge! I need something to occupy me this summer! Enjoy! :3 Rated T for space, as I might get some pretty nasty ideas...
1. Injured

**Lols, yesh, so: I am entering Prin Pardus's 100 OneShot Challenge! ^.^; Call me crazy if you will, but I really need something to occupy me this summer~! XD **

**Some of these may be two- or three-part oneshot story thingys, simply because I'm lazy and I don't want to make the chapters _too_ long to read - they need to be at least 1500 words, right? ^.^; Well, along with that, for this chapter, it kind of got random and disturbing in the middle, M-rated innuendos, nearly, and, well... yeah. I'll continue this later, okay? XD **

**Anyways! ^.^; I woke up this morning to find the cat in the hamster's box, pawing around! O.o; Of course I grabbed her, threw her out of my room, and closed the door... XD **

**I'm not very proud of this chapter, but as lately my OCD has been kicking up again and I've had some disturbing thoughts, I've kind of made the character of Cal Lightman from Lie To Me (he's Light ^.^;) have these thoughts about a strange case... :3 **

**But I like the start and finish of it! ^.^;  
**

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Injured

Light padded through the forest calmly, feeling confident. He knew this territory. He knew this place. He knew it better than anyone else.

He was carrying two mice and a vole; that'd do. Back at the agency he knew his friends were waiting; they were waiting for him to get back from his lone hunting patrol so they could all eat and plan together what to do about their next case.

Light blinked thoughtfully. This case was a tricky one. Housecats back in the human town were being picked off one by one, and not a single scent was left behind. This made it very difficult to find out who it was, and everybody was doubtful that it was even to be found out at all.

_I _will_ find out who's murdering those cats!_ Light vowed. _No cat should be killed!_

It was an easy vow to make, but a very difficult one to keep. They had first been alerted of it after Rosie, one of the housecats that lived down near the human soccer field, had witnessed her other friend, Sunflower, who lived in the next house, being attacked viciously.

"_I didn't see who it was," she had told Light and his little group. "All I know is that I heard Sunflower screaming, and I jumped onto the fence, yowling out a battle cry. Whatever was attacking her disappeared the moment I got close." She paused. "We… we were lucky. Sunflower was very badly injured. It was lucky that I was able to get my humans to investigate. We were luckier still that we were able to save her at all."_

"_She's telling the truth," Light said, looking around at Foster. Foster was studying Rosie's face, too._

"_Yeah. She's telling the truth," he agreed, nodding slowly._

"_So, will you help us, then?" Sunflower asked hopefully. "I heard that it was happening to some other cats, too."_

_Light glanced around at his companions; then, he nodded and said, "Sure. We'll help you."_

"_Oh, thanks!" Sunflower gushed._

Light mulled over this carefully. So, it wasn't just an isolated incident, as he had figured out already. But Sunflower, upon further questioning, had not been able to tell them of any scents, things that she saw, or anything. The strange animal in question streaked under the fence, and she hadn't seen it since.

They had asked Rosie, too, although they'd only gotten a chance to once because she was never outside anymore. It took a lot of coaxing from Sunflower to even get her close to the door, and even more to get her under a bush where the humans wouldn't see them, but they could question her thoroughly.

"_So," Light said flatly. "You're sure you didn't see anything."_

"_N-No," Rosie said, her voice trembling. "Y-You…. You're really going to help me?"_

"_Yes, we are, Rosie," Eli said comfortingly._

Light sighed. Even Eli hadn't been able to drag anything out of the poor cat…. He sighed. She was traumatized.

He walked more slowly now, his senses alert. He was suddenly feeling rather paranoid, and he wanted to make sure he was on top of things. He knew that when he reached the camp he would be safe, but for now…. He shuddered. He was at the mercy of whatever might decide to attack him, specifically if it was the creature that had attacked Rosie.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

His heart thudded in his chest.

…_._

Time seemed to slow down.

_Crackle! Snap! Scritch!_

Branches were broken loudly beside him and under his pawsteps.

Suddenly, every single noise in the forest seemed to be dangerous. His heart beat fast as he spun around, trying to pinpoint the sources of those noises. The forest seemed… alive.

He shook himself. _This is silly! Calm down!_ Light told himself. But it didn't work. _You're not normally like this!_

He started running. All of a sudden, he slipped on a branch and, while fumbling to retrieve his footing once again, thought he saw a pair of red eyes in the bushes. That was the last straw. He was trying to stay silent, but he shrieked as he slipped on something yet again and was thrown into midair, landing on the branch again with a sickening _crack_. Surprisingly enough, he didn't feel any pain… and when he looked down at the branch, he laughed in relief. _Oh! I just cracked the branch! Thank God!_

He shook his head, getting up, feeling stupid now for having panicked earlier. He was a trained detective. Why did something like this cause him to lose his head quite so easily? He'd seen far scarier things in his job, and he knew it. His body and mind both knew it… so what was with the panic attack earlier?

He sighed, walking slowly back towards the camp. _I'll ask Eli when I get home. That's the least I can do. She'll know how to help me._

He took his time, mulling over what he had seen.

_Did I really see that?_ Light wondered. _Could it have been a ghost? Or could it have been the thing that attacked Rosie? She wasn't able to describe it…. _

And, yet, it was gone so fast that Light wasn't even sure that he saw it himself. He kept mulling over this, but eventually the disturbing thoughts he'd been trying so hard to get away from came back and he stopped. He remembered some of the imaginative stories that Sunflower had been told by a city rogue and that she had told him. He shook his head. _Such a poor, innocent cat…. _She hadn't understood the meaning of it—she had never been around these things. He _had_. He _knew_ that these were stories about rape. He _knew_ that he shouldn't have to put up with these things. Yet… why did he?

"_Anyways, and then she went on with, 'Then the cat worked up a rhythm. I went with him, too, my paws kicking as he thrust,'" Sunflower told him._

_Light's eyes were wide. "Umm… interesting."_

_Sunflower looked proud of herself. "Isn't it great that I can remember so much?"_

"_Err…. Yeah, yeah," Light murmured._

_Once that story was over, she launched right into another one._

"_And she also told me this one: 'So, I was down at the city arena the other day, and I saw cats there! I decided to check it out. I noticed cats torturing each other! Or was it fighting? I couldn't tell. I couldn't tell anything anymore. After that brutal raping by all those tomcats, I smacked my head so hard that I got amnesia. At least, that's what I had been told had happened after I woke up. I couldn't remember anything… not even my own identity…. Of course, later I was able to. But for then, I couldn't….'" Sunflower trailed off._

"_Err. Sunflower. Did this cat tell _all_ these stories in first-person?" Light inquired._

"_Yep!" she said proudly. "What interesting stories! She said that they all happened to her, too." She nodded vigorously._

"_Sunflower, have you ever gotten it in your head that these may be disturbing?" Light asked._

Light had politely listened to the stories. Some got much worse; some were far more descriptive. He could tell by studying her face that she truly didn't know that these stories were a bad thing; she thought they were cool and, quite frankly, were the hardships of a true warrior. He had found out that the cat's name was Suncloud, and that she had been attacked by toms during a mating contest. It had gone on until nightfall, and it was a wonder that she'd survived at all.

Light shuddered. _Why do I think about these things?_ For the past five months or so, the thoughts kept cropping up—especially the one sentence, 'my paws kicking as he thrust'.

He wondered, _How the hell would a cat's paws kick as a cat thrust? Unless they were mating belly to belly? How does that even _work_?_ He shook his head. Obviously, there was a lot he didn't know. He wasn't too interested in knowing that, though, so….

He'd also heard a few cuter stories, from another cat, Sunflower had told him.

"_And this cat told me next, '_Dreamkit!_ I thought. _That's my name. _I opened my eyes and looked around,'" Sunflower recited proudly._

"_Cute," Light murmured. "Any other cute things?"_

"_Hold on!" she purred. "I'm not quite finished yet."_

_And so it continued. She told him a bit more._

"_A while later, I had finally gotten the hang of walking, Gentlegaze took me outside.'" Sunflower recited this story rather proudly, too._

"_Is it one of your favourites?" she asked him later._

"_Hell, yes!" he confirmed, nodding quickly._

"_Well, it's one of mine, too," she told him._

Light sighed. The stories about the kittens were cute, and Light wondered where the names had come from. He heard, however, that the names were 'Clan names'—cats who lived in groups with a solid hierarchy.

He preferred living with just his little group. But now was not the time to think about it—the camp was right up ahead! He happily hurried through the camp entrance and into the clearing.

"Hey, guys!" he called. "So, what's up? Eli back yet from her hunting?"

"No," Emily told him, looking up from her vigorous paw-washing.

"Yes," Eli called loudly, trotting into the clearing beside Light.

He glanced at Eli. "Hey. Hunting?" He eyed his prey scrutinously. "You didn't bring back much."

"No." Eli said it in a matter of fact way. "I… something else…. Well, I think I was chased by it, all right?"

"Chased by what?" Light asked.

"You know. _That._ You know it perfectly well; you knew what I was talking about the moment I said the word 'chased'." Eli's tone was very much accusatory.

"Well." Light sighed. "Now you can read my mind, too? I wasn't expecting that." He shuffled his prey around with his paws before saying, "Did you get a better glimpse of it? I kind of saw its eyes and then I ran…."

"You totally had a spaz attack, too; just the way you say it gives it away," Ria mentioned from the other side of the clearing…. Well, she _used_ to be there; now she was in front of Light and Eli.

Light rolled his eyes. "Okay. Enough of the 'I know what you're thinking because of my superbly specially awesome face-reading skills. Now. What did we all see? What are we going to do?"

"Correction," Ria put in. "Only you and Eli saw it. The rest of us did not."

Light rolled his eyes again. "Fine. Whatever. So, how are we going to eradicate this, er…." he glanced uneasily into the bushes around the edge of the clearing. "….thing?"

"Well, first, what is it, exactly? How did it move?" Emily inquired, coming up behind him and looking up at her father when he turned around.

Light's gaze was faintly amused. "Emily, I thought you never involved yourself in a case."

Emily rolled her eyes. "Well, you're talking about it all the time, and there's nothing else to do! Duh! Of _course_ I'm involving myself in the case!"

"Okay, then. So, what did we all… wait. Where's Agent?" Light asked, looking around.

Ria stopped washing herself. "Wasn't he here a second ago?"

"Was he?" Emily asked.

They all stared at each other in horror.

"Good Lord!"

"What if a fox got him?"

"What if the…." The speaker trailed off, as if unable to go on.

"What if the _thing_ who attacks us got him?" someone else cried.

"Whoa! Wait! Calm down!" Light ordered over his companions' cries. "We must go out and look for him." He got up, shook out his fur, and started walking casually out of the camp entrance.

Ria, Foster, Eli, and Emily clustered around him as they all walked through the forest.  
"Listen for any moans or anything," Foster hissed. She had the best hearing out of all of them. "I'll keep a lookout, too, but I can't do it all by myself, you know!"

"Shush!" Emily quieted her. "I think I hear something."

The moonlight shone down in a scattered way through the clouds as the five cats stopped, letting the white light dapple their pelts. Light's pale brown-gray pelt looked like a stormy night sky with white clouds zooming across it.

He pricked his ears. _What will it be…?_ Light wondered. _Moaning….?_

He suddenly realized, that, yes; he _could_ hear moaning!

"Help… uhh… ugh… help…?" the voice muttered.

_Agent!_ Light realized.

Emily was first through the bushes. She stopped beside Agent.

"Are you okay?" Light heard her ask.

He stepped through the bushes. He gasped. "Good Lord! What happened to you, Agent?"

The tom's body was covered with lacerations and scratches. One of his legs was sticking out at a weird angle, and one of his eyes was swollen and stuck shut.

"I…. I…," he panted, obviously exhausted.

"Rest," Ria said gently, patting down the fluffed up fur on his head.

"Some… creatures… attacked me!" he managed to get out. "Black… fast… didn't see 'em coming… attacked me and left…."

Light and Foster exchanged worried glances. "Could they…," he began.

"….Have been those creatures that attacked the housecats?" Foster finished. "Well, maybe."

"Hmm." Light looked down at Agent. "Let's carry this injured cat back to camp, all right? Maybe we'll figure out more once he's healed."

So, with that, they all picked up Agent—except Emily, being too small—and started back to camp, Ria running over how to fix him up, and Light hoping that they'd find those killer cat things—whatever they were—soon.


	2. Sinking

**Well, here is the second chapter of the 100 OneShots challenge! ^.^; Bleghs, the ending of this is a little rushed... but I hope it's okay! ;-; **

**Anyways. ^.^; **

**Enjoy! :D  
**

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Sinking

"Silverheart! Hunting patrol," called Shiningfeather, waking me from my half-asleep state. I moaned, rolling over onto my paws.

I crouched in the nest of feathers, bracken, and sticks, thinking over my thoughts for a second. I'd been still awake, yet dreaming; I'd been asleep, yet still awake.

I quickly shook my head. How confusing! _Why must everything be so complicated? I almost fall asleep, and everything that runs through my mind feels like a dream!_ I thought.

I had tuned out from the sounds of my Clanmates; I'd drowned them out with my own thoughts. I'd imagined being able to sit on a rock on the bottom of the riverbed, looking upward. I could breathe, and when I looked down, my fur seemed to float above my body. If I parted it, there were… _fish scales?_ I wondered again. Had they really been fish scales?

On the bottom of the riverbed, there was light, and the sunlight dappled the surface of the water. It was still behind me, yet there it was… all over me. I could see the sparkles and dapples of bright white sunlight as the water rippled and moved above me, yet I didn't feel as if I was being pushed down by the water myself.

I stretched out on the rock. This was just like in real life! I was feeling just like I was sitting in the air! However, there was a coolness here that I could never explain.

I got up and started padding towards a dark spot that I saw in the water above. I stopped under it, glancing up. It had four legs and it seemed to be flailing, causing the water around me to move and break from its normally peaceful rippling. The shape blocked out all the sunlight, and I squinted.

_What is it….?_

It let out a strange gurgling sound that I shouldn't have been able to hear from where I was; I was at least four fox-lengths below the water! _Lolololo._ It sounded like just a torrent of bubbles; plain bubbles, that was it. However….

"_Helolololololppppplo!_" it gasped. _Help! It's calling for help!_ I realized.

I quickly thought on it, and devised a plan so that I could help it without breaking the surface of the water. _What if there are other cats nearby, and they try to punish me for being on their side of the border, even though I'm just returning one of their loyal warriors?_

It was a possibly ridiculous yet usually valid fear. I braced myself to jump up and swim….

Suddenly, I heard my name. _Silverheart!_

Was it calling to me? I gasped, leaping up high. The black thing seemed to disappear. I readied my paws and swam up to the surface of the water, giving myself no time for confusion or to wonder about how and why I couldn't see or find the other drowning cat, kicking and churning my paws more strongly than I'd ever known that I could, my head breaking the surface as I heard the next words: "Hunting patrol!"

Just like that, my magnificent waking dream world was gone. I looked around, closing my eyes, but it had not come back.

I sighed. _Why must I always get woken up at the most suspenseful, and especially the best, parts of my dream?_ I lay back down, but Shiningfeather suddenly came barging into the den at that very moment.

"Silverheart!" she snapped. "You have to get _up_, now! You just took a nap; surely you're not _too_ tired to come and hunt with us little creatures called Clan cats, whereas you must be _so_ above us!" She looked angry, lashing her slightly bushed up tail from side to side, and I suddenly remembered that she had a _really_ short temper.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Shiningfeather!" I gasped, pretending to be desperately avoiding a confrontation and a possible hit, where, in reality, I was actually quite aware that if she did anything to me, like hurt me, or anything, _she'd_ be the one being punished, not me. After all… wasn't that only just _kind_ of in the _warrior_ code?

"All righty, now, _that's_ more like it." She seemed to grin, watching me scramble "desperately" out of my nest, and propel myself out into the open air of the camp, which was mostly empty by now, except for a few stragglers. It was late afternoon.

Slowing down to a leisurely walk- Shiningfeather, the one who seemed to higher herself (well, in her mind, anyways) with each passing day, was still in the warriors' den, obviously pestering another cat, or maybe she had decided to try to kick everyone _else_ out of the den so that _she_ could take a nap. Hey… I wouldn't exactly put it past her, that piece of fox-dung!

But, nope, a few moments later, she emerged from the den. By now, Ashfall and Hawkscreech had joined me. The two toms said that they were going on patrol with me and Shiningfeather, so I simply nodded, and didn't press the issue further.

When we got outside, I suddenly had an idea, so I decided to suggest it, and see what came of it. "Hey," I suggested, "why don't we all split up? Surely it'll make hunting easier?"

Shiningfeather glared at me, in a way that just _said_, _I'll get you later!_ I simply stared back defiantly, sticking my tongue out and making a face before flicking my tail and turning back to Ashfall and Hawkscreech.

Ashfall was a very large dark gray tom cat with long fur and an especially fluffy tail. He had green eyes.

Hawkscreech, on the other paw, was a small white tom cat with extraordinarily short fur, even for a RiverClan cat, and he had light brown tabby stripes running all down his back. He had amber eyes that were always very large and seemed to see everything; he had excellent eyesight, a trait that wasn't so common in RiverClan cats, but certainly helped a _lot_!

"Sure!" Ashfall spoke up first. He twitched his whiskers, purring for some strange reason, and flicked his tail. He was always very grumpy, and always seemed to purr on the rare occasions in which he was happy, or that he was pleased with someone. "I'll go down towards the Twoleg bridge, and hunt there."

"And I'll go towards the sheep farm!" Hawkscreech put in, with his trademarked very loud voice. Shiningfeather nodded.

"I'll go with him!" he declared.

Hawkscreech cast her a bit of a wary glance, but agreed, and went with her, anyways. Ashfall simply shot me a very amused look before bounding off into the bushes in the opposite direction of me. I took a deep breath, and went in my chosen direction.

I knew where I had been in my dream, so I thought, _Hey, why not?_ and went down to the bottom of the river when I was _supposed_ to be hunting. It wasn't deep, and, hey, it was definitely especially pretty down here! Sunlight shimmered down from above, and the water weeds waved gently in the current. I almost let out a purr of satisfaction, before realizing that I'd drown myself if I did. I simply sat there for a few moments, preserving my air, before realizing that my lungs were probably going to burst if I stayed down here any longer. I decided to go back up, take a deep breath of air, and then come right back down here again.

I emerged from the water, gasping and spluttering, and also breathing hard, despite my relative skill in swimming and holding in air.

_Guess I stayed down there for _too_ long!_ I thought, panting as a wave almost pushed me back under. _My, the very _nerve_!_ I slowly pulled myself up the shore, and heaved myself out of the water. I leaned on the bank, shivering slightly in the somewhat cold wind, and looked around for my patrol. They were nowhere to be seen. I dived back under the water, enjoying the warmth of the water near the surface, and sat on a rock, just looking up until I had to go back up to the surface for air again.

All of a sudden, I heard a splash (well, it sounded muffled, but, I mean, hey! It was still a splash, right?) behind me. I whipped my head around, almost taking water into my lungs, only to see a dark, flailing shape that looked like a cat fall in seemingly slow motion into the water, bubbles quickly spewing from its mouth. In that instant, I knew what I had to do. I pushed myself up frantically to the top of the water, taking a deep, gulping breath of air, and then looked towards where the body was still sinking. Ripples were still spreading out from the surface of the water, where the cat had fallen, and I couldn't see any other cat. _Great, then. I'm on my own! If this cat dies, then he won't even be missed!_ Somehow, this just pushed me to swim even harder. I beat my way across the rather strong current, even for this time, without any rain, and quickly reached the ThunderClan side, where I braced myself against the side of the river.

Then I quickly pushed off, and swam down.

I grabbed the cat's scruff, and somehow managed to push myself up and out of the water. When we emerged from the water, I noticed that we were really far away from where we were originally. I noticed a cat on one side of the water, and recognized it as Ashfall.

"_Ashfall!_" I screeched, but he didn't appear to hear me; he was simply far too busy hunting and concentrating on his own. "_Ashfallllll!_" I screamed again, taking water into my mouth and gurgling slightly. He still didn't hear me, and we swept on past him. It was at this point that I realized that I had to take matters into my own paws, and so I did, struggling and _finally_ reaching the other side, the ThunderClan side.

"Phew!" I heaved myself out, panting. The ThunderClan warrior was limp in my grasp, and he didn't move. I quickly laid him out and pressed down on his chest, and that did the trick! He coughed out a mouthful of water, the water spurting in a stream from his mouth and onto the ground, and suddenly sat bolt upright, his eyes wide.

"Wh-Where am I?" he cried. "I dreamed that I was drowning!"

"And you almost did," I informed him morosely. "I just barely managed to save you."

"Well… for that…." He paused. "Thank you, I guess?"

I nodded. "Don't mention it." He got up, and shook out his fur. Some droplets got onto me. "Hey!" I cried in protest.

He simply glanced at me in amusement. "But you're a RiverClan cat, eh? Surely it doesn't bother you? Or, well, at least not as much?" he murmured, under his breath.

"_Ahem_, ThunderClan cat," I protested, "that still doesn't mean that I enjoy getting sprayed! I like _swimming_."

"Ah, okay." He simply nodded, his whiskers twitching. "Say, what's your name?"

"Silverheart," I mewed warily. I could see that he had a glossy black pelt, and a long tail.

"Well, nice to meet you, Silverheart!" he said cheerfully to me. He had a bit of a strange accent. "I'm Darktail. Well, see you around, I guess! I promise that I won't drown again." He slipped off into the undergrowth, leaving me staring after him.

"I wish you would," I murmured.

And, then, with that, I walked down to the Twoleg bridge and went back to my side of the river, back home, to my territory.


	3. Father

**Hehe. ^.^; **

**I hope you like this one! :3 **

**It's kind of sweet. ^.^; **

**Enjoy! :3  
**

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Father

I glare after the two elders as they stroll to the fresh-kill pile, talking softly among themselves; tail tips flicking softly while keeping their tails entwined together.

I was assigned to help the elders today, but they refused. In fact, they're the only two elders, but they were alive while my father was, while he just destroyed the Clans with the help of rogues, and nobody could do anything to stop him. He was too strong.

I am the exact copy of my father, Icestar: I'm white, with very pale silver tabby stripes, and sky-blue eyes. My name is Cloudypaw, although some cats call me Icefangpaw. Whether they mean it cruelly or as a joke depends on the cat. I don't mind it when my friends call me that or some variation of it like Fangpaw, but when any cat who does obviously not wholeheartedly trust me does so, I get sort of angry… but also very, very, _very_ upset. And I'm not exaggerating, either! I've been shunned from birth by various warriors in the Clan.

"_Would you like Poppykit and Foxkit to take Cloudykit out, Galestorm?" Goldenheart, one of the queens, asked kindly._

"_Sure, why not?" Galestorm agreed, nodding. She stretched and yawned, then gave me a gentle little shove from her side. "Run along, Cloudykit." Then, she stopped, and blinked. "Remember what I told you about being careful," she whispered._

_I nodded. I knew the drill; I knew it loud and clear, and I had, in fact, heard it many times._

'Don't go into the warriors' den or the apprentices' den; you might get trampled by cats coming in and out. Don't play with food you don't want to eat later that's sitting on the fresh-kill pile. Don't go into the medicine cat's den, as some of the herbs and remedies could kill a small kit like you.'And most of all, don't talk to Darkstream, Yellowface, or Whitefang! That was always one of her rules. I didn't know why until I became an apprentice.

At first, Darkstream was my mentor. He would always take me out and I would never seem to catch any prey when he was around. He also had strict rules, and if I didn't catch any prey he would get mad and yell at me. A few times, he hit me. I never occurred to me to tell anyone else; for some reason, I simply assumed this was a normal reaction. I simply assumed that all apprentices got hit when they didn't perform a task or do something right.

I suppose that in my heart and head, I knew this was wrong. I knew he shouldn't hit me. But, then, why did he? The medicine cat, Leafstripe, said later that I have a serious inferiority and victim complex issue.

Just another demonstration of it was, well… it was that he never did that when any other cats were around! Whenever I went out with another warrior, I seemed to catch a lot of prey. No one could figure out what was going on! Here I was, catching all this prey, but then, whenever Darkstream was teaching me, I never caught anything! Everybody was confused. What was happening? How was this seemingly worthless apprentice, so like her father, always performing superbly well whenever another warrior was around? Darkstream's opinion—it was also the opinion of some of the other cats who disliked me—was that I was cheating. Fortunately, the leader and deputy didn't believe it. Neither did the medicine cat, nor my own mother.

_I stalked around a bush, my gaze fixed on a plump rabbit. I was out hunting with Darkstream, and I was determined to do well! He wouldn't distract me from my goal of prey this time!_

_Suddenly, rustling was heard in the bushes ahead. The rabbit ran away, its white tail bobbing off through the forest. I gave a furious chase. This was probably the only prey that I would be able to catch all day. No _way_ was I letting _this_ one go!_

_As I galloped through the forest, I was aware of something crashing through the bushes behind me. The way the creature panted, loudly yet furiously, let me know that it was Darkstream. _Darkstream!_ Did _he_ scare away my rabbit? Was it _only_ an accident, or was it something more? I had no clue, like, at all, but I still kept running._

_The rabbit only seemed to get farther and farther away from me, however, and, eventually, I just had to stop running. I skidded to a stop in the leaf mold, panting, and waited for my mentor to catch up with me._

"_You _idiot_!" Darkstream stopped beside me, and swatted me on the side of the head. I let out a squeak; it _hurt_! "You see what happens when you don't try hard enough? You must run _faster_! Plus, this is the fifth piece of prey that you've missed, at least, on my watch! And I don't suppose you'll tell me that you have any more prey, hidden away, or at least buried, somewhere?" He watched me with that triumphant yet angry look in his eyes that I hated so much. It was almost like… like he was doing this on _purpose_, just to make me feel bad._

_I looked down at my paws, ashamed of myself. My tail drooped as I admitted, "No, Master. Sorry, Master."_

_He had told me to always call him 'Darkstream' or 'Master'. It usually appeased him more quickly whenever I called him Master. _(Now, thinking on it later, I think he really just liked the power he had over me. He was always on a power trip.)

"_That's better," he said, grinning evilly, and flicking his tail. "Now, back to camp!"_

When we got back to camp that night, my wishes came true: The leader simply deduced that Darkstream was a bad mentor from the most recent turn of events, from the miserable time that involved catching no prey to the new cut on my cheek, which Darkstream lied about and simply said was a mere cut from a branch overhead that I hadn't been looking at and had run into (the leader disagreed with that statement: I was always very careful, she said!), and gave me a new mentor.

Wolffang was everything I could ever hope for in a mentor… smart, kind, funny, and an amazing hunter, to boot! He seemed to know anything and everything that a cat could possibly know about hunting, what kinds of prey was available when, and the best stalking techniques, and I learned quite a lot from him. Darkstream seemed to have learned by the time he got his next apprentice, which was a few moons later (well, that's just what the leader said; but I know better), a small brown tabby tom cat named Emberpaw, because of the orange flecks he had on his flanks and tail.

My best friend, Rainpaw, a white she-cat with light blue eyes and pale gray flecks, was made a warrior at the same time as me. Her name was Rainspots, and my name was Cloudysky. The leader told me later that he had considered Cloudyheart, but had decided that it could be deduced and taken the wrong way if one wasn't careful! Therefore, he decided on Cloudysky, which was still, in my own very honest opinion, a _very_ nice name.

Darkstream later died in a small battle when he _and_ his friends raided ShadowClan, Darkstream, Yellowface, _and_ Whitefang all together! They had decided that a recent border skirmish deserved to be avenged, and had taken themselves and their apprentices, albeit unwillingly, along. Goldenpaw, a small orange tabby she-cat with amber eyes, Yellowface's apprentice, had died out on the battlefield when a ShadowClan warrior leaped on her and tore out her throat. Snowpaw, a pretty silvery white she-cat with blue eyes, Whitefang's apprentice, lived, but she was permanently scarred. Emberpaw, a brown tabby tom cat with green eyes, lived as well, because he fled the scene with Snowpaw when it got too rough for them. They brought their friend's body back to camp, and told us all of the sad news. Whitefang and Darkstream died out on the battlefield, but Yellowface came home. The leader exiled him as soon as he reached the camp, however, and, delusional as he was, he raced right back to ShadowClan and challenged them, believing them to be the cats that had gotten him driven out of ThunderClan, that it was their fault, and that they killed Darkstream and Whitefang on purpose, and that they were cruel, coldhearted, coldblooded murderers (well, I wouldn't necessarily disagree on _that_ part, but they are quite mean!) who wanted nothing better than to kill a ThunderClan cat. He got too crazy, and attacked one of their warriors, almost killing him. The warriors then all converged on Yellowface and killed him.

We mourned Goldenpaw, and Emberpaw and Snowpaw were named Snowstreak and Emberheart. The Clan was finally at peace, and, with the three mean tom cats gone, I was no longer persecuted just for being who I was. It was a happy ending, for sure.


End file.
